Teaching Sagittarian
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Archive for Conferences
Yes! It’s that time again ……. almost! You KNOW what I’m talking about ….. it’s that time when you can don your PJs, and suck up all the bandwidth with your own personal learning sessions, anytime, anywhere!
It’s almost time for the annual FREE K-12 Online Conference! This years theme is “Bridging the Divide”. And this year is shaping up to be the best yet! Our very own Kim Cofino will be kicking off the whole shabam, the week of November 30th, with the Pre-Conference Keynote:
Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence, and the Future of Education
So mark these dates on your calendars:
PRE-CONFERENCE KEYNOTE: Week of November 30th
WEEK 1: December 7-11, 2009
Getting Started (13 presentations)
Leading the Change (14 presentations)
WEEK 2: December 14-17, 2009
Week in the Classroom (13 presentations)
I have to add that the keynote for this strand is by an awesome Kiwi girl (of course) Rachel Boyd
Kicking It Up a Notch (14 presentations)
That some, 41 presentations, all for you, at your leisure, and for the total PD price of ZERO dollars.
Maria Knee has put together this very clever teaser using animoto. If this doesn’t “wet your whistle” I’m not sure what will!!
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is used in the publication of all events. So if you’re like me, and ALWAYS get the timezones wrong – use TimeandDate to help you join in the fireside chats and eluminate sessions.
Psssst: Did I mention it was FREE!!
EARCOS 2009. Second Workshop Session with Maggie Moon – My thoughts in Italics
Kids like to read, kids like to talk – marry the two together.
Make them think talking about reading is cool
Read-Aloud important time of the day
Framework for Balanced Literacy
Interactive Read Aloud with Accountable Talk
Shared Reading,
Reading workshop
writing workshop
interactive writing/shared writing,
word study (phonics)
Reading Aloud to young children helps them to develop in 4 critical areas: oral language, cognitive skills, concepts of print, phonemic awareness
Different kinds of read alouds
Interactive Read Aloud – stop at places to think aloud, let students talk to a neighbor often have whole-class conversations
Content Area Read Aloud – texts that support learning in science social studies, math
Story Time – get lost in stories
Chose what read-aloud suits your grade level
Read Aloud Book Choices:
High Interest – ask kids!
Can be finished within a reasonable time frame.
Match “Units of Study” or theme work when possible
(get their feet a week or so before you start that unit – expose them to that genre)
Purpose of a Reading Workshop is get students reading independently as much as possible – sustained, focus, stamina building reading – book clubs fits in there – could still be reading own book but reading a bookclub book at the same time.
Partnership reading
Read Aloud is a good intro into bookclubs – you are modeling what a bookclub might sound like, look like.
Grow your own ideas, theme, what is the author trying to say …. Lively interesting conversations rather than a “recording” session
There are student book club basics – see slide notes
Can have individual conference with students who are reading a book above their level to help them cope with the bookclub.
Conversations should be as natural as possible – not retelling, want kids talking throwing ideas around, challenging, questioning
Give students a goal to work towards – that’s what bookclubs are for – use that to drive the reading strategies that we’re teaching throughout the year.
Getting students ready for bookclubs (do this over the year …… I really like this idea)
Say to students: One of the reasons that we are practicing this is when we get into bookclubs this will be really helpful. Grow your own ideas, having something to say to your partner, group etc.
Ability to change your mind is important.
Having conversations, how many pages are you going to read, negotiate what we’re going to look for. When are we going to meet again?
Have your bookclubs staggered so that you as the teacher can manage.
Like the idea of bookclub folders, team brand name ……
Tracking their thinking together – what do you really want them to focus on ….. so that conversation doesn’t go pooooof after 5 minutes
Independent readers could have some ownership in scheduling their bookclub – what would work best for them.
Look out for the coming prepared for talk with Post-its slide. It has some great ideas on it.
Post-its help you prepare for conversations, makes you more ready to talk.
Pause and think – at the end – Maggie doesn’t write a book review at the end of her reading of a book. Don’t need to always write at the end of the book. Ask them to capture on paper some of their ideas in their final conversation.
(book review totally deflates the finish of the book)
There are times that you want to assess the ideas – could see a post-it note wall working here.
What’s a character’s motivation what’s getting their way
Interaction with other characters, what does this say about them?
Character change
Model with students what to pay attention to …… (see above)
Teach them to read off the post-it – model it so they don’t sound robotic
After the conversation, model prompts that record their revision of changing of ideas after listening to others
I used to think … now I think
Little scaffolds that help them do this.
Accountable talk – see slide
Give students a vehicle to get them talking to one another, to have a good conversation.
From EARCOS conference in Kota Kinabalu March 2009. Maggie Moon is a Literacy Consultant from the Phillipines. She regularly visits ISB Bangkok as a Literacy Coach. It was really good to be able to sit down and listen to Maggie speak. As a newbie to Readers and Writers Workshops, I deliberately chose to attend all of Maggie’s workshops at EARCOS. I’m so glad I did – although in reflection this would have been a great way to be introduced to Readers and Writers Workshop on arrival at ISB. I finally feel like I have the missing pieces to the whole umbrella puzzle of my learning about these two types of workshops and student learning within them. Although my lessons are still no where near how I would like to be, I finally feel like I’m making some progress with the way they are running.
These are my notes from Maggie’s workshop: Maggie’s handouts here:
Interactive Read Aloud with Accountable Talk Thinking and Talking Deeply About Books
Kids like to read, kids like to talk – marry the two together.
Make them think talking about reading is cool
Read-Aloud important time of the day
Framework for Balanced Literacy
Interactive Read Aloud with Accountable Talk
Shared Reading,
Reading workshop
writing workshop
interactive writing/shared writing,
word study (phonics)
Reading Aloud to young children helps them to develop in 4 critical areas: oral language, cognitive skills, concepts of print, phonemic awareness
Different kinds of read alouds
Interactive Read Aloud – stop at places to think aloud, let students talk to a neightbor often have whole-class conversations
Content Area Read Aloud – texts that support leanring in science social studies, math
Story Time – get lost in stories
Chose what read-aloud suits your grade level
Read Aloud Book Choices:
High Interest – ask kids!
Can be finished within a reasonable time frame.
Match “Units of Study” or theme work when possible
(get their feet a week or so before you start that unit – expose them to that genre)
15-20 minutes everyday
OR
2-3 times a week, 20 mins
2-3 times across a 6 day cycle, 25 minutes
Try to schedule it – the more regular it is the more students come to expect it
Proficient adult reader – good for kids to hear one read.
EARCOS March, 2009 – Session Notes (my thoughts in italics)
- Students learn at different rates – instruction should be differentiated
- Be engaged in authentic work – give them strategies for where writers get their ideas from (key to writers workshop)
- Explicit instruction going on
- Students need a model – do writing in front of them. You can use mentor text, show them writing (it doesn’t always have to be yours)
- Your goal is to give them strategies to try, and encourage independence and choice
- When you are modeling – don’t give them a perfect model – step by step feel to it, show yourself having a struggle, (students see the action in detail – they see you struggle) try to write things close to what your students are writing. What you are making as a model is as close to what your students are writing.
- Goal of unit-of-study is to have a container that is holding everyone together
- Good writing workshop has a layer of assessment – formal and informal – informs you what you will be doing with your whole class – perhaps the whole class is not getting the concepts that you are introducing. What will you teach more of, less of?
- Possibility of Writers Workshop 3-4 times a week within a balanced literacy programme – in order to fit everything in – not ideal but could still work (perhaps this is how to fit in specific grammar practise – out of 6 day timetable, one day is grammar lesson not writers workshop)
- Workshop Structure: 45 mins: Minilesson (10mins) Worktime (30mins – changes over time, teacher confers while students work, one to one conference, small group work: Mid workshop Teaching point (2-5mins) – take something that you have noticed – manage any little thing back to the whole class. Teaching Share (5-10mins) take time to reflect, work with writing partner, ask questions. You can stretch the workshop out to an hour if students can stay focused on the writing -the ones that have been writing for a while.
- Mini lessons more than 10mins are maxi-lessons (be clear, concise, planned ahead of time) This is an area that definitely needs to be a focus for me – mini lessons are way tooooo long!!
- Folders and Notebooks – Upper Grades (3-5+) use Writer’s Notebooks and Drafting Folders. Notebooks are for collecting entries. Writing Folder for the drafting process – write a draft, and revise it.
- Writing Process for Writers Ages 4-7/8:
- Immersing
- Rehearsing and Planning
- Drafting
- Revising (taking words out, making sentences better)
- Editing (fixing mistakes, punctuation, grammar)
- Publishing (final product – making your final product – want this aspect to go as quickly as possible)
- Celebrating!! (share the pieces with the class, invite people in, blog? principal, kinderbuddies,writing contest, published authors)
- Writing Process for Writers Ages 8++
- Immersing
- Generating (Collecting) Entries (in the writer’s notebook)
- Choosing a “Seed Entry” (still in the writer’s notebook)
- Developing and Nurturing
- Planning and Drafting (see their seed entry differently – don’t copy it – model this) draft on computer – print out Version 1 then make revising changes so that you can track. Take advantage of spellcheck (that’s what we do).
- Revising
- Editing
- Publishing and Celebrating (ideas: Museum (comment sheet underneath), Group sharing, blogging – authentic audience, Author’s Chair)
- MiniLessons (sense of gathering on the mat area – not at the desks)
- One, explicit teaching point
- Student gather at a meeting area
- Teaching points fit together to create a “Unit of Study”
- Four parts to the lesson – predictable structure – connection, teaching, active engagement, link – how does this fit in with what we are trying to do, not just another task.
- Important for kids to see teaching point in action
- Publishing – ok vrs perfect – if it’s taking a long time you need to consider how much of the writing process you are knocking out. Suggestion from audience – partner/peer editing
Some units could be teacher-formal editing but not all (Maggie took a post-it and kids had to find the words that she found – don’t write all over their writing – it’s a respect thing. ELL different ball game for them – they are learning a new language – more time to help them with the editing to help them to learn rather than the focus on the final product – the more you do it for them, the less it becomes their work. Drawing, then labelling, scaffold works well for ELL students – this is still writer’s workshop (think how can this go for them based on what works for them) - One to One conferring: Has a consistent structure (if you have 20 students in your class- across a week you see all of your students at least once – conference times vary but they are not 20 minutes long!!) Research – talk to student, see what they are doing, watch them; Decide (quick decision – compliment and then Teach) Coach: Link:
- Writing Centres – tape, pencil sharpener, stapler, scissors, date stamps, paper choice, drafting paper, mentor texts, reference materials – don’t be the gate keeper!
- Writing Partnerships – may or may not be ability based, meeting on a regular basis, to read their work aloud, ask questions/advice of their partners, and to give feedback – this needs to be modelled, taught – watch them, make notes on what they aren’t doing so well in this part and turn it into a minilesson. The longer you can keep these partnerships together, the better. At least some span of time – you can change after several unit of studies.
- http://unitsofstudy.com One way the year of writing could go – it is a RESOURCE – you could follow directly but you don’t have to. You should make adjustments to fit in for what your students need.
- Units of Study – Grade 4/5 A version of how a year could unfold
- Launching the Writing Workshop (routines etc)
- Raising the Quality of Personal Narrative
- Realistic Fiction
- Personal Essay
- Writing Fiction, HF, Fastasy or Mystery Making RW Connections
- Literary Essays or Fournalism
- Content Areas Writing, Writing to Convey Ideas and Information
- Memoir – The Arto f Writing Well
- Independent Reading Projects / Revision
- Essentials for the success of Writing Workshop: Don’t wing it – planned ahead of time, waht do you want your students to practise, what do you want your students to create. Covers the level stands or school benchmarks. Lasts between 3-6 weeks (typically 4 weeks) Strikes a blaance between teaching, assessing, teaching assessing
- Maggie did a little small moment mini-lesson – she wrote a story about snorkling with Diane, we then turned and talked about our ideas for our own small moments:
- Turn and Talk – is the active engagement part (Link – so this is something, where any little story that happened to you and you’re trying to make it sound like it is happening all over again.
- Dark rain clouds were building up in the sky. I hope we are not going to be flying through that rain as we walked down the ramp into the waiting airplane. I put all our luggage in the overhead locker and (I really struggled trying to write like it was happening, I kept wanting to write in the past tense!!)
- Reverse pyschology – cut off the writing on a high note – don’t fall into the trap of letting writing going if it’s going well. When something matters to you – when it’s meaningful it’s much more powerful – that’s why you don’t limit the choice. The big goal is to just let’s all write! This is not the final product – it’s a collection of entries – one of those will be revised.
- Have struggling writers “underline” the words they don’t know how to spell. Writers try their best, sound words out, make sure they are not blocked from writing.
- Maggie will email powerpoint
- Get your own notebook – have to be self-disciplined about it. Start writing because you will learn what to teach when you go through it. Make your publication dates public.
My fabulous colleagues back home in New Zealand have been enjoying the Learning@Schools09 Conference held in Rotorua. When my good friend AllanahK tweeted that she was organising a “Matt-style” dance at the start of Wes Fryer‘s Keynote presentation, I couldn’t resist the urge to tweet back “Can I skype in?”
Sure enough – at 7.15am Bangkok, Thailand time, and 1.15pm, New Zealand time, she did just that- skyped me in so that I could join in the dance too. It was brilliant – almost like being there. I was able listen to Wes’s Keynote until Allanah’s battery finally died. I wish I could have been there in personal to reconnect with old friends, make new friends, and learn new things from incredibly talented people. Watch the video!
I originally used jing to capture the screen on my laptop (‘cos that’s all I had), then discovered that it saves as .swf. Drat – not editable (without the Pro version – funny that?). So here’s the master genius work around I used:
Step 1: Grab Jeff Utecht on his way out the door – (‘cos he has ScreenFlow)
Step 2: Replay .swf on his laptop and re-capture using ScreenFlow – saves as a .mov, edit as you go
Step 3: Import into iMovie – add titles and credits
Step 4: Play real “Dancing with Matt” video on YouTube to capture the soundtrack using Audio Hijack Pro
Step 5: Import audio into iMovie – adjust sound levels
Step 6: Upload to teachingsagittarian’s YouTube channel
Did I mention that I love my mac laptop?
I love the play on words for LAN – traditionally known as Local Area Network – and it’s use lately for local educators getting together to watch and discuss the K-12 Online Conference offerings.
The extremely wonderful Kim Cofino, graciously hosted ISB’s first K-12 Online Conference LAN party last Saturday morning, in downtown Bangkok. She’d already downloaded most of the videos, set up the TV and sound-system AND had breakfast on the table with helpful supplies from us all. Of course I must mention that Kim has a presentation along with another fabulous educator, Jen Wagner in this years K-12 Online Conference. “Connecting Classroom Across Continents: Planning and Implementing Globally Collaborative Projects” in the Kicking It Up a Notch strand.
The conversation was flowing, rich and authentic as we shared with our fellow colleagues what we thought might be of interest to them to watch. The two presentations decided upon were Chris Betcher’s and Alice Barr, Bob Sprankle and Cheryl Oak’s Keynote in the Getting Started strand. This was to be the 3rd time I’d seen Chris Betcher‘s presentation “I Like Delicious Things: an introduction to tagging and folksonomies“ and STILL I learnt more tips from it. The amazing Silvia Tolisano skyped in from Jacksonville, Florida and did a fabulous job of explaining the difference between delicious and tagging to one very keen teacher sitting in the room who really wanted to understandwhat she’d just witnessed in a presentation.
Our LAN party was so successful and so authentic that it was decided we just could leave it at one party. This format is now set to become a regular occurrence, rotating between venues close to school and venues downtown. It will always be open for everyone, anytime they feel they can make it. There’s a wealth of talent and knowledge and ideas out there just waiting for us to tap into. And the conversations that arise out of just watching a presentation for 12- 15 minutes is phenomenal! I really can’t think of a better way to receive personal Professional Development. What’s even better is the K-12 Online Conference is available anytime convenient to you. Heck, there’s still K-12 Online Conference 2006 and 2007 presentations on my list to watch that I still have access to!
Here’s to the next LAN party in two weeks time – if you live in Bangkok – hope to see you there – if not, and you think you might want to skype in and be part of the conversation, we’d love to hear from you!
I wonder which presentations we’ll watch this time?
It was an absolute pleasure to be invited by Silvia Tolisano to skype-join in the conversation at their school’s K-12 Online Conference LAN party “last night” or earlier this morning (for me.)
The timing was perfect – albeit they were having a wine (early evening) and I was having a coffee (early the next morning), the conversation was very interesting and most enjoyable.
My understanding of how Silvia had set up the LAN party was there were several rooms set up with various conference presentations running in them so that teachers could choose which presentations interested them the most. Then when those presentations had been viewed, everyone met together in one room and discussed what they watched and what they understood or took from it.
The power of sharing ideas, thoughts and understandings, whether you are having conversations face to face or skyping into them is so strong. The power of discussing what you’ve seen, what you’ve heard and how that affects you is even stronger. There were presentations I heard teachers talk about that I hadn’t considered watching but now I will because I’m curious and inspired by their thoughts. I’m now personally connected to some of those teachers even though the chances of us meeting face to face are relatively small.
If you haven’t considered watching K-12 Online Conference 2008, I really think you ought to. And then find someone who’s watched it too and have a conversation with them – they don’t even have to be living in the same place as you! Better still, inspire someone else to start watching K-12 Online Conference presentations too.
What is best practise? Facilitated by David Jakes and Clarence Fisher during a Learning2.0 Conference unconference session.
The conversation was rich, it was real and it was authentic. There were lots of questions, lots of discussion, not lots of answers.
Is it making the task authentic? Is it making the teaching and learning transparent? Is it building relationships? Is it collaboration? Is it using the right tool for the job? Is it establishing the climate? Is it transferring knowledge? Is it accepting the differences? Are you applying technology in the right way?
It doesn’t matter how you engage the kids – the key thing is that you are actually engaging the kids. But is there a danger that it’s easy thinking? Thinking of the guy that just lectures and the kids dig it! I bet he’s passionate!
Teachers telling teachers what they are doing? Find out what others are doing – are we overburdening our students?
If we make a list will that lock down what best practise is? Is this dangerous? Isn’t best practise really about meeting the child where they are at and moving the child on?
A conversation participant mentioned location – what was best practise in a classroom in Africa where she was teaching before is certainly not best practise in the International School classroom she is in now in.
We looked at Darren Kuropatwa’s blog to see the practise that he has going on in his class through technology. Building a community. Megacognition – Scribepost – I want to look at that. The blog has feed windows brings in classrooms from around the world. His kids can virtually visit other classes. All of Darren’s classes are podcasted – whiteboard work has been uploaded up to slideshare. He has 4 of his own children, so this is not a man that spends all his time on the computer! It obviously has to be dead-easy system- apparently he has it set up so that this takes about an extra 10 minutes of his day. All the work of the class is on the web. Accessed and re-accessed anytime, anywhere.
So is best practise about offering the tools that are right for each student’s learning? What does this mean for the teacher that is not comfortable with all this technology? What if you think these are really great ideas and you strive to be the best teacher you can be and you just don’t know how to do this stuff? I really admire the work of Darren Kuropatwa – but I don’t know how to begin with half of the stuff he’s doing? I know that I have the resources at my fingertips and the personal learning network to learn how though – and is that really what best practise is all about?
So is best practise whatever engenders our students to learn whatever it is that they need to learn both within their own communities, and outside those communities?
At the end of the day does best practise mean it’s all about the relationships we build both inside and outside the classroom?
Unedited notes from actual session:- reflection post to come later. Posted through Posterous. Will tag and edit later when edublogs can be accessed.
http://jakes.editme.com contains all of the information from this session
Make it personal, publishable and make it transportable.
Digital Storytelling, it’s participatory – as we move towards the saturation of this kind of content uploading to the web. Video will be the standard way to communicate. I need to check out the Last World – Obituary
Did you know ……….
78.3 million videos uploaded
152 thousand videos uploaded every day
aver. length 2.45 mins
aver age 26.5 years old
USA 34.5%
412 years to watch
What are we doing in schools to ensure that our students can build content and get across their message in a clear and concise way? http://ourstories.org see the stories from the Nijerian 1 to 1 schools
We would be remiss if we don’t teach kids about good content. Dylan’s couch - on YouTube (has had 1.8million views)
There’s an audience for the students we need to help kids craft their messages for the audience.
New Media
Creative Commons
Licence Attribution: anytime someone wants to use the image they just have to attribute it back to the owner . Rights and responsibilities – using images appropriately and legally
Flickrstorm – you can search flickr very effectively
ccmixter.org take audio download it add to it and re upload it
New Tools
jamstudio.com (online garageband)
jumpcut – (imovie or photostory but online) no longer have to have software on your machines
mycadillacstory.com encourages you to write a story about your car
Teach kids to create content that is in a format for cellphones and iphones
You can put the embed code of voicethread in Google Earth
Flypaper – make a story that sticks
Dandelife – create a life cast. Online timeline of your life. Upload diff. kinds of media to add to it.
box.net – need to look at that.
New Composition Strategies
Crafting stories in the right way – Can we translate written grammar into visual literacy
There are samples online – on the wiki there’s a lot of these examples:
Here’s a few:-
Slow zoom in gently focuses the viewer
Quick xoom in intensifies drama
Panning adds animation ?????? best to do it slow
In most cases pan left to right
If you want the view to feel uncomfortable – pan right to left
New Message
Be careful – meaningful messages to be crafted
Provide kids with an entry point in their stories
Celebrate Pangea Day – show kids the content of this site
storymapping.org
Fox news – be creators of content – this is not going to stop it’s
going to continue, we need to teach kids because this is a life time of
contribution
New Networks
Stories for Change.net – join this community teach kids to be members of communities
YouTube – moderate the comments for your kids
AFI screen nation – provides students with a safe place to host their content
Digital Storytelling Process
It’s about writing – personal narrative. Lead kids into getting their stories. Digital Diplomacy (what’s it like to be an american, canadian etc)
Extract the essence – the script. 3 pages to 1 page double spaced. Then highlight the parts that they have to say. Originates form the spoken work 2nd meaning is Visual
Don’t illustrate their story – have their story be illustrated.
Storyboard
Put emotional terms into your visual search
Share
within your classroom first, then out in the community
Digital Storytelling Skills
Writing
Visual Literacy
Project Management
Intellectual Property
Network Literacy
Learned a lot from this session – definitely things to take back to the classroom and apply straight away. Will definitely help with Lucy Caulkin’s Writer’s Workshop I think.
Clarence Fisher: Click: Classroom Life in the Fast Lane
Has a combined class of 23 Grade 7 and Grade 8 in a small town. Sees connections as important. His classroom looks like a coffee-shop. Classrooms need to be different spaces. Simple things like setup have an impact on learning – it allows a certain type of learning to happen. It’s a signal that there’s a different kind of learning able to happen in the classroom.
Teacher is the network administrator (not the guy that fix the computers) His job is to hook kids up into a learning network – you need to do that for them in the beginning. Asks his students what are you learning from the people you are reading. If they aren’t learning anything he says well why are you reading them? And also what are you contributing.
Classroom is studio. Think about occupations that have studios. Redefines your classroom – it’s ok if people are doing different things at different times – it’s ok if there is choice. Starts off as simple choice but as the year goes on the choice becomes more. Eg. blog a post, record a podcast, paint a picture.
58 different ways to show your learning – how cool is that?
Once you start connecting your kids to the world you are no longer the smartest person in the room. It’s not about you giving the information out – it’s about you helping it happen. Fishing the Web. The content at any one point is not important – it’s the portal that gets you there.
How it works in Clarence’s Classroom
Has iGoogle page. On it, it has 5 blogs. It’s the required reading. I guess these were carefully chosen to ensure that the students had a real, authentic and interesting perspective to read.
Uses Global Voices online – it’s an aggregator – you can pick a country and a topic and will pull it all together. This is the “Social Studies” text book – he doesn’t have an actual textbook in the class! This is information IN (through RSS)
Information OUT is a blog called Upload and a Wiki http://studyingsocieties.wikispaces.com
The students write their own textbook for Social Studies.
When the information goes up, the wiki starts to self-edit. The kids correct each other, readers correct the information, you can hear kids talking in the hallways about the information – that’s when you know the kids have got it.
Branding – gives the kids something to belong to. Wordle – makes a tag cloud!! A couple of times a year he gets them to copy and paste their blog posts into wordle and they make a tag cloud to see what they are blogging about. It’s a visual way to see what they are writing about. They can see what they are feeling the most or least strongly about. They can see the data – and do some reflection.
There’s so much free stuff out there – Clarence pays $25 out of his own pocket on technology. That’s it.
When you can place assignments online they become alive – if it goes into the teacher’s inbox at the back of the classroom – that’s it – it’s over. But put it on line – it comes alive, it’s at their finger tips. It’s more complex literacy – just look at @manyvoices that happened in twitter. They used Lulu.com and published little books with the story in! It was a literacy success that meant something to the students. They wrote it with 12 other schools! It came alive.
Phun and Scratch – both free. Draw stuff, then it moves. It teaches students that technology is for them but they have to control it. ( I need to look at Phun and Scratch for my Grade 5 students)
Kids learn so much more when you allow kids to put their heads together and show their learning, be creative and innovative and THINK. Make something with their learning.
Assessment: Rubrics and conferences – the studio model – does lots of thinking, have questions, discussions. Takes a lot of different forms. Give the kids the rules up front. If you want them to hit a target – tell them what the target is. Give them checklists that they can tell where they should be at this point. Where are you on this? What do you need to improve? What do you need to do? You need built in stops – it’s not good to go 4 weeks without checking in.
There’s five or six things going on in Clarence’s classroom – it’s chaos, it’s noisy but it is productive. He stops kids often. What do you see, what do you hear? (Ask the kids to do those things and it becomes second nature).
Our five years is up – the traditional classroom and traditional way of learning is no longer good enough. If you can give kids thinking, choice and give them the time.
All the slides will be on slideshare and up on the ning.
